Quote Originally Posted by GrowGoddess
I don't know much about using moonshine and can't offer any recommendation. I have heard both good and bad experiences with it.

Soon I should be able to offer an opinion on grain alcohol vs 99% iso. I will be getting some 190 proof Everclear. I will be doing a comparison soon. I will be making QWISO hash though, but it is better than nothing.

Here is an iso extraction of QWISO hash. It is great for smoking or vaporizing. It is not for ingesting like RSO is. I like it a lot for vaporizing in my e-cigarettes. RSO does offer more flavor. Really, it all comes down to personal preference.

QWISO test run. Triple rinse without the heat that RSO requires, the oil comes out cleaner looking. Only good for smoking or vaporizing.
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Okay, so I made the QWISO with the 190 Everclear. For making QWISO I like the grain alcohol better. It is less fumy and more safe in my opinion.

For RSO, well, I have been taking the oil for about three years. Now that I enjoy vaporizing it too, (large quantities), I want to make the oil a little safer. It is not that expensive and you don't really lose any oil out of it, just one additional step to take in the process. I can't really afford to do a full extraction with grain alcohol, and am not so sure about those recovery systems. I just fear that they can do the oil more damage than good, not to mention that those recovery systems can be very expensive. So I have a poor man's solution, so to speak.

After making my RSO with 99% isopropyl alcohol, it is completely finished, stored in the syringes. I will just put the oil back into the purge pan and dilute it with 190 proof or stronger grain alcohol and purge the oil again. Of course I will be extra patient and delicate. Certainly do not want to cause damage to the oil. After the purge is finished, I like it to come out thicker and more concentrated without heat. I just put a coffee filter over the purge pan, hold the filter on with a rubber band and put the purge pan in a dry well ventilated area. After a couple of days I will lightly warm the oil so I can suck it back up into syringes for storage. It may take more than a couple days depending upon how dry and ventilated the area is. This is after I purge out the 190 everclear on the coffee cup warmer. So you can get the oil as concentrated as possible. It is also important for caregivers like me so we do not possess more than our limits will allow.

Knowing I am going to be using oil for the rest of my life, it makes me feel a little better knowing it was purged with grain alcohol. This is not a must or anything, just something you may want to consider.

I couldn't afford to do these experiments with RSO because it would require a lot of grain alcohol which is expensive, not to mention when I make RSO I prefer to use at the least 5 ounces of bud. I did notice when I use the grain alcohol for the QWISO that the alcohol evaporated faster than the 5% water. So the oil was kind of dry in the glass baking pan, but there was a lot of white foamy water that still needed to evaporate. So obviously if you use grain alcohol to make RSO you will not need to add water to the rice cooker at the end of the rice cooker purging stage.

In the batch of QWISO I made with the grain alcohol instead of waiting for the water to evaporate, I dilluted it with more Everclear and put it into my RSO final purge pan, applied a little heat and had a fan blowing across it. I do like QWISO or RSO repurged with Everclear. Gives me an extra peace of mind. My purpose for bringing QWISO into this thread was for comparing grain alcohol to 99% isoporpyl alcohol. If I had the resources, I would have used the grain alcohol to make RSO for the experiments/comparisons. The only other reason I decided to make QWISO was to see if the e-cigg vaporizers were capable of decarbing the THC and able to provide a good buzz or offer relief. Also, and overall comparison between RSO and QWISO for the electronic vaporizer. The end result of comparing the two is personal preference. The are each different. It is just a matter of which way you prefer it. For vaporizing, QWISO is convenient because you can make small quantities. The convenience meaning you do not have access to large quantities of buds.

Overall RSO does it all! You can eat it, you can vape it, and you can use is as a topical. RSO is the way to go!

Winterizing, I don't really recommend for treating cancer, but for using the RSO for vaporizing, you may want to winterize your oil. Winterizing is just a matter of making the oil cleaner. 190 proof or higher grain alcohol is what you want to use to winterize RSO as long as it was made from iso or grain alcohol. To winterize say RSO made from isopropyl, just dilute the RSO with 190 or higher proof grain alcohol, put it in a glass jar or something, store it in the freezer for at least three days. Pull the jar out of the freezer, run the solution through a paper coffee filter, then purge that solution. There you have your winterized oil. Just a basic simple way to do it. It is more effective with a more dirty, higher chlorophyll oil. Winterizing very clean high grade oil is really more wasteful than helpful. My only interest in winterizing is for vaporizing purposes, to improve taste and it helps the vaporizer heating coil function properly and last longer.

Here are some pictures of my QWISO run with Everclear. In the picture to the left, you can see the white foam bubbles of the water from the Everclear. If it were 99% iso, you would not get that. Not a real big deal, just takes longer to evaporate.
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Completely organic. Again, I apologize I was not able to do this with RSO. With the vaporizer mix, I added about 50% Propylene Glycol USP to the oil. I tried it out in my favorite vaporizer, innoken SVD, non decarbed oil, and it is awesome. My first time using only one strain too. Blueberry Jam is my "dirtiest" darkest strain. I don't normally use it for making oil, especially when the oil is meant for vaporizing. It came out really clean. I am pretty sure it is because there was no heat like when making RSO.
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This was not easy to get, I had to order it from another state. My state only allows the 151 proof.
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Same RSO batch each winterized. One winterized using isopropyl alcohol. The other with 190 proof Everclear. As you can see, the everclear winterization the oil came out cleaner (bottom syringe). It would be more colorful and transparent if I had a light behind the syringes.
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